OotP problems

[Rebecca Spinnet]

well lets see after finishing OotP i am a little disappointed there were quite a few problems
1. this one has already been metioned but the whole thing with Harry's dad being a prefect it was mentioned that he was head boy in one of the earlier books and in OotP it says he wasn't???
2. second the thestrals they have taken Harry and friends up to the school before and he wasn't able to see them and i know they say he could in this book because he saw Cedric die... but he ALSO has seen his parents die even if he doesn't remember it he was near death or whatever and he does kind of remeber it because of the dementors..

There were other things wrong too i just can't think of them right now did anyone else find anything wrong or know what is up with the two i metioned?

[DrkSphere]

1) I don't think you need to be a prefect to be a head boy. Of course, it would make sense, but sometimes things change. *shrugs*

2. I think it has to be a concious recognition of death. When you're one, you don't understand what happened... but you need to witness death when you understand it, to see the thestrals.

[Nothlit]

I wondered about Harry and the thestrals, too. But I imagine that you need to have actually seen the death, and perhaps when Voldemort killed Lily, Harry wasn't looking. Simple enough, I suppose.

[Nothlit]

Something I've been wondering about... If someone tries to remove a Prophecy from the shelves of the Department of Mysteries, and they're not named in the Prophecy, they go mad. Simple enough, so we need Harry to go take the glass ball off the shelf so the Death Eaters can take it from him and deliver it to Voldemort. But during the battle in that room, we see stray spells shattering other Prophecy globes left and right, and the Prophecies are released, and the person who cast the spell doesn't go mad. So why couldn't Voldemort have saved himself a heck of a lot of trouble and just sent Lucius or somebody in there to break Harry's globe with a spell and use an enchanted quill to copy down the message or something? (Yeah, yeah, I know then we wouldn't have a very suspenseful book, but JKR has rarely been known to leave gaping plot holes without a very good reason...)

[Holly Golightly]

With the prophecy thing, I think taht he just wouldn't trust his DE's that much... and remember, he wasnt' supposed to be at the MOM... i think that he showed up because he didnt' trust them to pull the job off properly... (which they didnt' )

And about the thestrals, I didnt' understand why he coudlnt' see them before either. Okay, so maybe he didnt' comprehand the death, or remember it when he was one, but after 3rd yr, with the memories bought about by the dementors, he definately should have seen them then, no???

[Holly Golightly]

Oh, sorry about hte double post, but I forgot to add this...

With the prophecy balls, the kids threw teh spells at the shelves holding them up, and knocked them over, which is why they didnt' go mad... *otherwise someone like puciuos could have just used the accio spell*
So, if the DE's had done that, alot of balls woudl ahve broken (like they did for hermoine etc) and they wouldn't have been able to decipher the right prophecy over the sound of other ones...

That's what I'm thinking anyways!

[Nothlit]

Another problem with the thestrals...

We all assume that Harry can see the thestrals at the beginning of OotP because he witnessed Cedric's death in GoF. So why didn't he see the thestrals when the carriages came to pick up all the Hogwarts students at the end of the school year in GoF to take them down to the Hogsmeade train station? They did take the carriages...it's mentioned near the bottom of page 725 of the American edition of GoF.

So either there's something about the thestrals that we don't understand (unlikely) or JKR screwed up (sad, but likely).

[Person#11]

But the guys also said to little of the prophecy and to fast.

In my school you don't have to be prefect to be head boy, head boys usually aren't prefects.

[Person#11]

It says something like, the voices vied with eachother and only fragments remained. But you are right, the thestrals should have been visible on the way home in book 4.

[June]

Some more minor problems in OotP:

In Book 4, Rowling described Apparation as a "faint popping noise" but in OotP, it became a "loud cracking noise" that scared Harry...

So, which is the correct version?

In Book 4 too, Percy had described the Howlers as "if you don't open Howler straight way, it explodes. Scorch marks all over (Percy's) desk and (his) best quill reduced to ashes." However, in Book 5, when Aunt Petunia didn't open the Howler Dumbledore sent to her, it didn't explode. Which version is once again correct? Or is there nother explanation?


I know these are teeny weeny things... but I wonder... are these Rowling's mistakes or re there better explanations?

[Nothlit]

Perhaps because Fred and George are new to Apparating, they can't do it quite discretely as others who have more experience.

And as for the Howler sent to Petunia, it didn't outright explode, but it did start smoking and eventually "burst into flames."

[Rebecca Spinnet]

It is strange that we catch the little things you would think that if we notice them Jk Rowling should be able to also and she most likely has a reason for all this stuff it would be better if she explained it like the whole prefect/head boy thing

[Person#11]

When they were looking for problems they probably looked more ofr problems that would affect the story, be immpossible, or leave gaping plot holes.

[HuffleDuck]

Some of us look for the problems or mistakes so intently and expected it to be perfect that instead of thinking about the problem and mistakes thoroughly.. I have visited many HP fan website and reading mistakes from the book.. Movie not included cuz u know Hollywood.. no movie will be the same as the book... SOme of them are not at all wrong, but the readers that didn't look at it carefully or reading it.. and thinking about it. I'm not really into those mistakes, for im very happy with the book the way it is.. And if you complaining about the book being wrong.. complained it to the printing company... Some of the copies have misprinted.. And i have to buy another copy.. But still happy though for i have OotP signed by Jk....( so happy).. But the luckiest is leaky-cauldron.. one of their staff memebers, have a signed copy by Jk with .. I love Leaky-cauldron. J.K Rowling...